Warrant shows NH police shooter Cullen Mutrie was selling painkillers

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — A New Hampshire man who shot five police officers had been involved in the sale of more than 500 prescription painkiller pills every few days from his home, an informant told police, according to a search warrant unsealed Tuesday.

Officials said Cullen Mutrie, 29, killed Greenland Chief Michael Maloney and injured four officers from other departments as they tried to enter his home last week to search for evidence that he was selling drugs. He later shot himself and Brittany Tibbetts, a 26-year-old cosmetologist whom the warrant identified as his “paramour.” Their bodies were discovered in the house after a tense standoff.

Maloney, who was just days from retirement, told selectmen at a meeting last week that he had one final item he needed to clear up.

Neighbors had complained about Mutrie before. In 2010, officers who went to his house to confiscate guns after a domestic violence arrest found anabolic steroids. Neighbors told police in February of 2011 that they had heard him yell into his phone, “How much is an ounce?”

Then, in September, the U.S. Postal Service was reviewing express mail shipments into Portsmouth when officials there found nine packages had been shipped to Mutrie from an address in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The return address was from a Curtis Mutrie, but police could not find anyone with that name listed there.

Earlier this year, an informant told police that Mutrie and Tibbetts were dealing oxycodone out of the home, upwards of 500 pills every few days.
Detectives asked the informant to try to buy drugs from either of them. The informant said he or she was able to buy 10 pills from Tibbetts.

Officers conducting surveillance over the next several months said they saw several cars at the house that belonged to people they knew to be drug dealers or users.

The warrant indicates police believed Tibbetts was living with Mutrie, although her mother told The Associated Press earlier that they had broken up after dating for a year and a half and Tibbetts had moved home to Berwick, Maine. Donna Tibbetts said Brittany Tibbetts had gone back to Greenland in recent days to help Mutrie sort through some issues that were upsetting him.

A message seeking comment on the allegations in the warrant was left with her family.

A wake is scheduled for Maloney on Wednesday and a memorial service will be at noon Thursday at Winnacunnet High School athletic field in Hampton. Two of the other four officers shot were treated and released while the other two remain hospitalized but are expected to survive.

On Tuesday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Jane Young asked a judge to unseal the warrant that allowed the officers, who were part of a drug task force, to search Mutrie’s home. One paragraph was blacked out.